I have an Olypus E500, and I love it... Unless you have a large collection of lenses for Nikon or Canon (which it sounds like you do not) then take a look at the E500, there are TONS of reviews out there on it.

here is a shot I took recently...



oh thats actually a WRB STi, I just tweaked it in PS

 

Just research, research and research before you commit. Check out what fits your budget, how many lenses and which ones you'll buy. You'll be most likely be keeping the lenses so look for something that has a large variety of choices. A good start would probably be a prime lens (fixed 50mm, non-zoom is a good starter that's cheap), kit lens (18-70mm or similar), a zoom (70-300mm or similar), etc. Just remember you get what you pay for.

 

I have an XT with tamron 28-300 and love it. It is a little small(size wise I miss my rebel 300d body), but it's a great overall camera. One of my friends has a D50 and out of the box the D50 was a saturation happy, but it is one quick camera. After I helped him calibrate it our pics were pretty close. The D50 a bit heavy for my liking, but he can rip through the high speed stuff.


If you want a great, relatively inexpensive lens, look at a tamron 28-200 or 28-300. The only time I take it off is to put on a .5 reducer on for macros, or a 2x tele extender for the morning dew shots at the beach Having a zoom lens won't give you as good of pictures as a fixed aspect lens, but for 99% of us, they work great, they generally have smaller aperatures, and suffer from barrel distortion pretty bad, but havign a 28-300 that is only a few inches long when closed is very nice.

Edit * This is the lens I use http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/cont...ughType=search (they have it for nikon, minolta and pentax as well). The sigma 28-200 or 28-300 are great lenses and can be had for around $250. I also use a pair of sigma EF500 flashes. For the price of 1 decent canon speedlight I picked up the sigmas and a slave arm. I usually bounce the dedicated and have a diffuser on the slave to clean up the shadows.

 

http://dpreview.com
^good resource

http://pbase.com/jdepould
^that's me, I use a D50.

Now that that's out of the way, I'll say this, do not buy a camera without first going to the store and holding it in your hands. It doesn't matter if the features are great and it has great picture quality, if it doesn't fit in your hands properly you won't enjoy shooting with it. If you're like me and have a little bit bigger hands (I really just have long fingers) then the Canon may be too small for you.

 

i think reason people think the rebel is too small for their hands is it's lacking the extended grip.

wait... never mind. the d50 seems to be 'missing' that portion that the D2x has...

anyways, the extended grip was like nite and day for my canon 10D...

 

here's a rebel XT with lens. http://forums.***************/showthr...postid=0#post0

Dell Home has Canon Rebel XT 8MP Digital SLR camera kit with 18-55 lens for $899 - 20% coupon code DBS?L$0VN1G74D (600 uses) - $35 coupon from eBay - $100 rebate = $584.20

 

Hey i am have a Canon 350d (rebel XT) and i love it. works perfect for me. sometimes i wish i had the 20d but due to its weight and size i would much rather have the XT. My room mate has the Olympus E500 and he likes it, i find the controls a bit confusing but essentially it is the same as the XT except for its image buffer is slower than the XT. I have used the D50 and its spot meter was really difficult to use. Anyways i would say if your not worried about bulk, get the 20d, size matters get the XT. if you want a Nikon i would go D70 anyways good luck...

 

I am not a camera guy so I can't offer you much. Since I am not a camera guy, I didn't want to spend a truck load on it. At that time, D50 was the most reasonable for me. I love my D50 and it does more than I am capable of.

 

I purchased my D70 a year ago and at the time was comparing it againts the Canon 20D. I choose the D70 because I liked the manual overide controls vs. menu based. If you can swing it I highly recommend the Nikon AF-S Nikkor 18 - 200 mm f/3.5-5.6G DX ED VR lens.
Unfortunatley, the lens is as much as the cost of the body.
Good luck on your choice!

 

+1 for that lens. i just picked one up

 

May I ask where you purchased it and how much? Every where I looked, it's back ordered and those selling it have marked it up 100-200 bucks over MSRP.
Thanks!!
Bill

 

actually mine is on back order too. hopefully itll come in a couple weeks. i forgot the exact name of the store, i will find out later when i get home

 

Yeah, they're backordered every where. Mostly I'm curious about the pricing. The main reason why I want this lens is I'm lazy switching between two lenses and this gives me the best of both worlds for the focal range.

 

was gonna say ask leo about the D50. LOL.

if you are looking for a camera that takes good jpegs right out of the box, get a D50. D50 has one of the highest dynamic range compared to other high end dSLRs. IIRC, the D50 is just slightly lower than the fuji S3 in DR. go all out and get a EOS 1ds Mark II. LOL

 

Nikon....because of the ergonomics.

that said, i shoot with a 20D b/c of its low light abilities (high ISO). you can pick up used 20D's for fairly cheap. used D70's are even a better deal...i would go with Nikon if i wanted to enter the market at that price point.